The Evil lurking in Barnes and Noble Childrens Section...

This picture was taken at the Harry potter release party in October of this year, this is not the evil of which I am referring...

What has happened? Have I done something wrong or is this something right? Let me tell you a story, a story of 3 kids and their parents who think it is a HUGE treat to be able to go to Barnes and Noble to pick out a new book or two once a month. I am raising the next generation of reading geeks, I hope... One can always hope.

So, yesterday was like any other Saturday here, busy with projects going on in and out of the house, buckling the house down for winter, cleaning up, laundry, kids playing together nicely (ok so thats not normal but it honestly happened yesterday, all 3 of them , it made my heart soooo happy), so I decided I would take the kids after dinner to Barnes and Noble to pick out a new book or two as a treat. I'm getting really bored with the same board books Jack keeps bringing me and I have been wanting to read David Sedaris since I have heard good things about how funny he is.

It starts out as a normal drive, nice, about 15 minutes to get there, and we pull into parking lot hell. Barnes and Noble is in a new mall here called Crocker Park, it is an outside mall (which is dumb for winter in Ohio..) with a movie theater, high end five star restaurants, all of the stores you would find at a normal mall plus many extras. Well, lets just say, Saturday night, is NOT the night to try to park there at 7pm. I drove into the parking lot at 7pm and we finally found a parking spot at 7:50pm. I was just about to give up. Thank goodness it wasn't a cold or rainy night because we had a long walk to get to the book store.

We get to the store and first look at the bargain books, I got some great books there for the kids. So then we head to the elevator that will take me to reality.... We exit said elevator when my beautiful, sweet, smart oldest daughter drops a bomb on me. "Mom, I really think I don't want a book this time, I really would like to buy a diary. I have a lot of things I'd like to write down that are private so I would really like one that has a lock".

WHAT??????? What things does my BABY (who is 7 1/2 by the way) have that she needs to keep secret, from ME? My heart is in my throat but I agree that maybe a diary would be a good thing, but it comes with two keys, maybe she will give me one? Surely she means she doesn't want her sister to see it, surely she does NOT mean I can't read it, I mean really, what can a diary of a 7 1/2 year old say anyways?

So, we walk into the childrens section where Megan starts browsing for the perfect book, and Mike takes Hannah over to the diary section. Can you believe they have a WHOLE DIARY SECTION? I couldn't bear to watch so I was browsing board books with Jack to find something that won't drive me crazy to read 50 million times a day to him. I know that Megan will take the longest to pick her book so I continue to keep her in my sight as she browses along. Megan seems to think that only the bargin area is where the kids books are (which is kind of nice). And Hannah and Mike come over to me and she shows it to me, that evil secret keeping thing. She picked out the PERFECT diary. Unpickable lock, not at all like the kind I had growning up where you just pulled on the lock and it opened. Oh, and it's blue. Blue is her current favorite color. She used to be a pink girl, pink princess, she was the biggest girly girl I had ever seen. I always thought God was playing a huge joke on me with that, me, a tomboy from way back, getting a little girl that is so opposite from me. I bet he is up there laughing daily at the irony of it all.

So, who is this girl? She looks like Hannah, she smells like Hannah, she speaks like Hannah. But who is this secret diary keeping grown up kid who no longer likes pink? Maybe if I find the key to the evil diary I would know? I can't do it though. I want her to come to me on her own, I don't want to be that mom who only knows whats going on with their kids through friends or by searching through her diary and her things.

Being a mom is harder, so much harder than when she was a baby. The older they get the harder parenting gets. I sure hope I'm doing the right thing.

Signing out~
Jeni